What's Your Miss? (How to Change it)

Every golfer has a miss. Some golfers slice the ball, while others hook it. Some hit it thin or fat, and others strike it off the heel or toe. But every golfer, regardless of skill level, has a pattern—and that pattern tells you everything you need to know.

The Most Important Question in Golf

Most golfers start in the wrong place.

They ask:

• What am I doing wrong in my swing?

• What position am I missing?

• What should my backswing look like?

  
  

But the real question is much simpler:

What is your miss?

The ball does not lie. It always tells the truth about what happened at impact.

Why the Miss Matters More than the Swing

Two golfers can have completely different swings and still produce the same miss. Similarly, two golfers can have nearly identical swings and yet produce entirely different misses.

This is because the swing is not the result—the ball flight is the result.

If you want to improve, don’t start with the swing. Start with the pattern.

Step One: Identify the Pattern

Before anything can be fixed, the golfer must identify what is actually happening.

Not just one shot. Not just one bad swing. But the overall pattern.

Ask simple questions:

• Is the ball starting to the right or left?

• Is it curving more in one direction than the other?

• Is contact consistent, or is it scattered across the clubface?

• Is it thin, fat, or solid?

  
  

You’re not looking for complexity—you’re looking for repetition. Improvement begins when the miss becomes predictable.

Step Two: Understand the Cause, Not the Symptom

Most golfers confuse the symptom with the actual problem.

• A slice is not a swing issue; it’s a face-and-path relationship issue.

• A fat shot is not caused by "looking up"; it’s a low-point control issue.

• A heel strike is not random; it’s a strike pattern issue.

  
  

Once you correctly understand the cause of the miss, the solution becomes much clearer.

Step Three: Match the Correction to the Miss

This is where most instruction falls short.

Golfers are often told to "fix" something by aiming for a neutral position. However, neutrality is not a learning tool—it is the result of effective practice.

Instead, the correction must directly address the problem. If the miss is extreme, the correction must also be extreme.

• If the clubface is wide open, practice intentionally closing it.

• If the swing path is out-to-in, practice exaggerating an in-to-out path.

• If contact is inconsistent, focus on deliberate ground and strike control.

  
  

You cannot control what you cannot feel. Subtle changes are difficult to sense until you first understand and experience the extremes.

Step Four: Use Exaggeration to Build Awareness

Golfers improve faster when they can feel both sides of their pattern.

If your miss is to the right, practice what it feels like to overcorrect to the left.

If your miss is to the left, practice what it feels like to overcorrect to the right.

This contrast builds awareness, and awareness leads to control. Without awareness, achieving control is impossible.

Step Five: Return to Control

Once both extremes are understood, the goal is not to stay extreme. The goal is to narrow the pattern. Golf improvement is not about eliminating variation completely. It's about controlling it. A good player is not someone who never misses. A good player is someone who understands their miss and can bring it back quickly.

The real goal of this blog is not about fixing your swing. It's about changing how you think about your swing. Because once you start with the miss, everything else becomes clearer:

• What to practice

• What to change

• What to ignore

• What actually matters

Golf improvement does not begin with posistions, it begins with one question:

What's your miss?